A meaningful pick may be impossible given the cross-era comparison and the dearth of footage. I'll pick Norfolk under his rules by stoppage and Marshall by DQ under his rules. Ha.
I don't know much about Norfolk only that he fought a couple of British fighters at the end of his career which also happened to Lloyd Marshall. I'd read about the famous Marshall shoulder roll when I was boxing in the 70s but had never seen it. When I eventually did see this all time great giving Freddie a good pasting, the American was supposedly the lamb being sacrificed to fearless Freddie. Wow Marshall was superb, he battered Mills from pillar to post and the shoulder roll was as good as I'd read.
I think Marshall could time and land dynamite on Norfolk...but in the end I think I lean towards Norfolk's physicality and mauling closing the gap...especially in a longer scheduled distance fight. Imo...in a ten rounder, Marshall might escape with a win...longer than ten rounds? Marshall might be carried out...
Marshall could possibly outmaneuver Norfolk and take the win, Norfolk was tough strong and the naturally bigger guy though Would partly depend on if he could impose those aspects on Marshall ill come back to this one hope it gets more replies, leaning more towards Norfolk right now though
Marshalls best days were probably as a middleweight when he punched Ezzard Charles all over the ring and out-pointed Burley and LaMotta. Even when he was in his 30s when he wrecked Freddie Mills he was only at the modern super middle weight. Good match up though
Marshall was a ring mechanic with real power ,but his chin sometimes let him down. He was brought over to the Uk to lose to Freddie Mills but ended up caning him . Mills still got his title shot,Marshall didn't. I believe Marshall's management was ,shall we say "shady ," how much this impacted on his results I don't know. Norfolk is a fighter I'm not qualified to give a definitive opinion on.His results seem to indicate he was something special and it's hard to know how much he was sidelined from title opportunities. He was known as a dirty fighter ,at just 5'8" ,often fighting larger men , he may have felt the need to," even things up a bit". He seems to have begun as a pro when he was 15 years old, so his win loss record is not a reliable indicator of his abilities imo. No pick from me.
how many top fighters in those days had shady manager figures ?? The immediate post war period had some really really great fighters, some of whom had had upward of 60 fights before getting a sniff of a title. Its even been suggested than Marcel Cerdan had to make certain 'sacrifices' to get his chance at Tony Zale Sugar Ray Robinson got castigated for 'squeezing promoters' but who could blame him and Rocky Marciano got flak for being economical with his money but after the thousands of hard luck stories who could blame him either.
